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by Nick Bryant

This election, surely the most extraordinary in American history, was a revolt against the political establishment.

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And few people personify the political establishment more than Hillary Clinton. During this campaign, for millions of angry voters, she became the face of America’s broken politics.

Donald Trump managed to persuade enough voters in enough states that he offered a fix. The billionaire cast himself successfully as the ultimate outsider against the ultimate insider. He was the protest candidate. She represented the status quo.

Constantly, Hillary Clinton claimed that she was the most qualified candidate. Constantly, she recited her curriculum vitae – her experience as first lady, a US senator for New York, a secretary of state.

But in this mad-as-hell election, where there was so much rage and discontent, Donald Trump’s supporters saw experience and qualifications as huge negatives. So many people I spoke to during this campaign – especially in the old steel towns of the Rust Belt – wanted a businessman in the White House rather than a career politician. Their hatred of Washington was palpable.

So, too, was their hatred of her. It was visceral. I vividly remember talking to a middle-aged woman in Tennessee, who oozed southern charm, who could not have been more polite. But when the subject of Hillary Clinton came up her whole demeanour changed.

Hillary Clinton has long had a trust problem, which is why the email scandal loomed so large. She had an authenticity problem. She was seen as the high priestess of an east coast elite that looked down, sneeringly, on working people.

The vast riches that the Clintons accumulated since leaving the White House did not help. The former first couple were seen not just as limousine liberals but Lear Jet liberals. Again, their wealth exacerbated her problems with working class voters, even though they happily voted for a property tycoon.

In a country where millions more women vote than men, it was thought that her gender would give her a major advantage. But what became clear in the primaries against her rival Bernie Sanders was how hard she found it to enthuse young women voters especially about electing the country’s first female president, and shattering the most resilient glass ceiling in global politics.

Many women never warmed to her. Some remembered what were interpreted as disparaging remarks made when she was first lady about not wanting to stay at home making cookies. When Donald Trump accused her of enabling her husband’s affairs, and of attacking the women who accused Bill Clinton of molesting them, many women nodded in agreement.

Doubtless, old-fashioned, unreconstructed sexism played a part too: the refusal of many male voters to countenance a female president.

In a year when so many Americans wanted change, she appeared to offer more of the same. It’s always hard for a party to win three successive terms in the White House. The Democrats have not done it since the 1940s. But that problem was exacerbated by the fact that so many voters were bored with the Clintons.

Hillary Clinton is not a natural campaigner. Her speeches are often flat and somewhat robotic. Her sound-bites sound like sound-bites – prefabricated and, to some ears, insincere. The re-emergence of the email scandal was a huge distraction, and meant that she ended her campaign on a negative message.

She struggled always to neatly encapsulate her vision of America again. “Stronger together” was never as snappy as “Make America great again.” Indeed, the Clinton campaign went through dozens of possible slogans, which spoke of her difficulties in crafting a message.

Her campaign also made tactical errors. It focused resources and time on states she didn’t need to win, such as North Carolina and Ohio, rather than spending time shoring up the famed blue wall, those 18 states that have voted Democrat for the past six elections.

Mr Trump, with the help of white working class voters, partly demolished that wall by taking Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1984.

This was not just a rejection of Hillary Clinton but also a rejection by half of the country of Barack Obama’s America, but that is a piece for another day.

by Anthony Zurcher

Donald Trump has defied all expectations from the very start of his presidential campaign more than a year ago.

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Very few people thought he would actually run, then he did. They thought he wouldn’t climb in the polls, then he did. They said he wouldn’t win any primaries, then he did. They said he wouldn’t win the Republican nomination, then he did.

Finally, they said there was no way he could compete for, let alone win, a general election.

Now he’s president-elect Trump.

Here are five ways he pulled off what was unexpected by most and incomprehensible to many.

Trump’s white wave

Toss-ups were tossed aside. One after another, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina went to Mr Trump.

That left Mrs Clinton’s blue firewall, and the firewall was eventually breached.

The Democrat’s last stand largely rested on her strength in the Midwest. Those were states that had gone Democrat for decades, based in part on the support of black and working-class white voters.

Those working-class white people, particularly ones without college education – men and women – deserted the party in droves. Rural voters turned out in high numbers, as the Americans who felt overlooked by the establishment and left behind by the coastal elite made their voices heard.

While places like Virginia and Colorado held fast, Wisconsin fell – and with it Mrs Clinton’s presidential hopes.

When all is said and done, Mrs Clinton may end up winning the popular vote on the back of strong support in places like California and New York and closer-than-expected losses in solid-red states like Utah.

The Trump wave hit in the places it had to, however. And it hit hard.

Teflon Donald

Mr Trump insulted decorated war veteran John McCain.

He picked a fight with Fox News and its popular presenter, Megyn Kelly.

He doubled down when asked how he once mocked the weight of a Hispanic beauty pageant winner.

He offered a half-hearted apology when the secret video surfaced of his boasting about making unwanted sexual advances towards women.

He gaffed his way through the three presidential debates with clearly lightly practised performances.

None of it mattered. While he took dips in the polls following some of the more outrageous incidents, his approval was like a cork – eventually bouncing back to the surface.

Perhaps the various controversies came so hard and fast that none had time to draw blood. Maybe Mr Trump’s personality and appeal was so strong, the scandals just bounced off. Whatever the reason, he was bulletproof.

The outsider

He ran against the Democrats. He also ran against the powers within his own party.

He beat them all.

Mr Trump built a throne of skulls out of his Republican primary opponents. Some, like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Ben Carson, eventually bent knee. The holdouts, like Jeb Bush and Ohio Governor John Kasich, are now on the outside of their party looking in.

And for the rest of the party insiders, from House Speaker Paul Ryan on down? Mr Trump didn’t need their help – and, in fact, may have won because he was willing to take a stand against them.

Mr Trump’s pox-on-them-all attitude is likely to have proved his independence and outsider status at a time when much of the American public reviled Washington (although not enough to keep them from re-electing most congressional incumbents running for re-election).

It was a mood some other national politicians sensed – Democrat Bernie Sanders, for instance, as well as Mr Cruz. No one, however, captured it more than Trump, and it won him the White House.

The Comey Factor

The polls clearly did a woeful job predicting the shape and preferences of the electorate, particularly in Midwestern states. In the final days of the campaign, however, the reality is that the polls were close enough that Mr Trump had a pathway to victory.

That pathway didn’t look nearly as obvious about two weeks ago, before FBI director James Comey released his letter announcing that they were reopening their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

True, the polls were tightening a bit, but Mr Trump’s sharpest rise in the standings came in the weeks between that first letter and Mr Comey’s second, in which he said he had put the investigation back on the shelf.

It seems likely that during that period, Mr Trump was able to successfully consolidate his base, bringing wayward conservatives back into the fold and shredding Mrs Clinton’s hopes of offering a compelling closing message to US voters.

Of course, Mr Comey’s actions never would have been a factor if Mrs Clinton had decided to rely on State Department email servers for her work correspondence. That one is on her shoulders.

Trusted his instincts

Mr Trump ran the most unconventional of political campaigns, but it turned out he knew better than all the experts.

He spent more on hats than on pollsters. He travelled to states like Wisconsin and Michigan that pundits said were out of reach.

He held massive rallies instead of focusing on door-knocking and get-out-the-vote operations.

He had a disjointed, sometimes chaotic national political convention that was capped by an acceptance speech that was more doom-and-gloom than any in modern US political history.

He was vastly outspent by the Clinton campaign, just as he was during the Republican primaries. He turned consensus wisdom about how to win the presidency on its head.

All of these decisions – and many more – were roundly ridiculed in “knowledgeable” circles.

In the end, however, they worked. Mr Trump and his closest confidants – his children and a few chosen advisers – will have the last laugh. And they’ll do it from the White House.

by es/kms.

GOP firebrand Donald Trump has won the US electoral vote, sending shock waves around the globe. Financial markets plummeted amidst the back-and-forth of the tense election.

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After several hours of too-close-to-call exit polls, Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time. Donald Trump addressed his supporters shortly thereafter, vowing to be president to “all Americans.”

“It is time for us to come together as one united people,” he said. To those who didn’t vote for him, he said he was reaching out for guidance and help to lead the country.

“Ours was not a campaign but a movement, comprised of people from all backgrounds and religions. Working together we will work on the urgent task of rebuilding America,” Trump told his supporters.

“No dream is too big, no challenge is too great,” he insisted, saying America would no longer settle for “anything less than the best.” He said his government would put America’s interests first, but make sure that everyone was fairly dealt with. Addressing the international community, he said “We will see common ground, not hostility, partnership, not conflict.”

Trump supporters cheer

Earlier, jubilation and chants of “lock her up” erupted at Trump’s election headquarters in Manhattan after it was announced that he had won the key state of Pennsylvania, making his victory almost certain after a suspenseful night in which some states were decided by a razor-thin margin.

The Clinton campaign had earlier refused to concede as the race remained tight, but during his speech, Trump said his opponent had called and congratulated the Republicans on their victory.

Another decisive factor was the relatively high numbers for third-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Jill Stein, siphoning votes away from the major parties. With over 3 million votes, Johnson became the most successful third-party candidate since 1996.

French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen became one of the first international figures to congratulate Trump on his victory.

“Congratulations to the new president of the United States Donald Trump and to the free American people!” she wrote on Twitter.

The result came as a shock to many as Clinton had a steady lead in the weeks before the election. She lost significant momentum when FBI Director James Comey announced the Bureau was reopening an investigation into her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State, only to close it again a few days later.

Reactions from around the world were similarly astounded that a man who has no political experience and has made so many offensive comments about women and immigrants would be able to take the White House.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told public broadcaster ARD that the Trump victory came as a “huge shock.” She added that I think Trump knows that this was not a vote for him but rather against Washington, against the establishment.”

Norbert Röttgen, a lawmaker which Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), summed up the German uneasiness toward the election when he said, “We’re realizing now that we have no idea what this American president will do if the voice of anger enters office and the voice of anger becomes the most powerful man in the world.”

Markets on a rollercoaster over Trump win

The nail-biting race wrecked havoc on financial markets as the uncertainty of the race played out across the stock market. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled a massive 1,000 points. Japan’s Nikkei Index was down 2.23% and both the US dollar and Mexican peso plummeted.

Social media overnight showed a glimpse of a tense and anxious America, with many complaining that the constant back-and-forth of the 24 hour news cycle was making an uneasy election even more difficult to cope with.

“Right now the election is too close to call and too terrifying to contemplate…it’s a nail-biter and a passport-grabber,” said the Late Show’s Stephen Colbert midway through the night, expressing a sentiment felt by many Clinton supporters.

Many began to express their dismay as the possibility of a Trump presidency became more and more realistic.

The demographic breakdown revealed a deeply divided United States, with African American and Latino voters overwhelmingly choosing Clinton, and the majority of white voters selecting Trump. Early projections saw a vast increase in voter turnout over the 2012 election, with USA Today reporting a 4.7% increase. Ninety million people were expected to cast a ballot, a historic number of voters, if not an unprecedented percentage.

All in all, it was a successful night for the Republican party as they maintained control of both houses of the US congress.